


the future's in our hands (and we will never be the same again)

by lovelyleias



Category: Alien (1979), Alien Series, Alien: Isolation (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But not too slow..., Canon-Typical Violence, Christopher Samuels Lives, F/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Robot/Human Relationships, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2019-11-13 05:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18025835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyleias/pseuds/lovelyleias
Summary: Ripley and Samuels have spent months on the run after barely escaping Sevastopol alive. But just when they believe they have found a safe haven, they discover that the Company will stop at nothing to erase all evidence of what truly happened on the doomed station.





	1. Chapter 1

Amanda peered at the double faces of her watch and wondered how long she had until she’d be kicked out for loitering. It was late afternoon, and the establishment’s booths were beginning to fill with patrons looking for an after-work pint. Amanda gaze wandered over the other customers as they talked and laughed and drank, and she tried to ignore the little prickles of envy that crawled up her spine. She had spent many good nights in bars like this one with friends and coworkers, but those nights seemed so hazy and far away, as if they’d been nothing but dreams. At one of the booths, a group of engineers wearing Hyperion logos on their jumpsuits burst into laughter, and Amanda had to turn away.

Hyperion was a midsized station owned by Spectrum, a company so small that Amanda had never heard of it. She and Samuels had stepped off the _Torrens_ and on to its’ docks at the beginning of April.

“What about Earth?” Samuels had first suggested while they had still drifted aimlessly in the _Torrens_. They had both crept around the ship hesitantly those first few days: half-fearing a reappearance of the creature— although they had expelled it— and half-hoping Verlaine and Connor would emerge from some clever hiding place. After scouring the ship, they had confirmed that there were no other unwelcome passengers, but also that the _Torrens_ ’ crew was gone.

“Earth is too obvious,” Amanda had countered. Not only the birthplace of human life, but also the planet where Samuels was built, and so close to her own home planet of Luna.

“But easy to lose ourselves in,” he had pointed out. She had had to agree and so they had spent two weeks in a motel in an Italian suburb before two Weyland-Yutani agents kicked down their door. Amanda and Samuels hadn’t dared to wait and see what the men had planned for them, and instead left them half-dead on the cheap plastic floors as Samuels shook the blood from his knuckles. They had spent the next four months on the _Torrens_ , occasionally docking on planets and stations only long enough to refuel and restock their supplies. When they had decided that they had put enough distance between themselves and anyone who might be following them, they docked at Hyperion, a mundane station that was unlikely to attract any kind of attention.

Amanda took a tiny sip of her pint and scratched her head. She’d been sitting in the bar for nearly an hour and had only finished half her drink. The bartender, a short middle-aged woman, had repeatedly come to hover around her, no doubt annoyed by the customer who was taking up space and spending little money.

“I’m waiting for my friend,” she said awkwardly, when she felt the woman’s eyes burning into the top of her head. The bartender rolled her eyes and stepped around the bar to serve a group of men at one of the booths who were waving her over.

 “Your beer is flat, anyway,” Amanda mumbled under her breath, dinging the edge of the glass with her fingernail. She looked back at her watch and sighed.

Samuels was late. This was not too unusual, for he was often kept behind at work. The first time that he hadn’t met her when he was supposed to Amanda had panicked. She had remembered the way he had looked on Sevastopol, slumped on the floor with milky liquid leaking from his nose and from between his lips, and her heart had hammered with fear. She pictured Ricardo with that terrible creature clinging to his face, Taylor with shards of glass embedded in her brain, Waits with his broken body, Axel and the mess of gore and blood he had left behind. She had pushed her way to the nearest transit car, seeing nothing but white until she had stumbled into his workplace and watched him turn around in his desk chair, his face an immediate picture of concern. His co-workers had watched awkwardly as he had put his arm around her and guided her back to their apartment. Amanda’s breathing had steadied by the time she had sat at the kitchen table with a glass of water. Samuel’s had tried to speak to her about the incident several times since, but she had refused.

Amanda reached up and scratched her scalp again, trying to make the casual gesture appear effortless. It was a difficult task, especially as the hair was as fake as the ID in the pocket of her pants. The wig was a pain in the ass, just like her false name, and her terrible job. But Weyland-Yutani would be searching the galaxy for dark-haired, bare-faced Amanda Ripley, and not for Ellen Baker, who had red hair and a fondness for pink lipstick. Amanda Ripley worked contract jobs on ships and hangers, Ellen Baker sold clothing in a store that catered mostly to middle-aged women and only rarely did she forget to smile. Amanda knew that using her mother’s first name could be a dangerous, but she had once heard that aliases were most believable when they meant something to the person using them. It might have been stupid to cling to her past, but she’d always been so very bad at letting it go.

“Ellen,” Amanda turned at the sound of her alias. Samuels smiled as he pulled out the barstool beside her. His face was a familiar comfort, even with dyed blonde hair that washed out his skin. Amanda raised her hand to the bartender who had returned from the booths. She sulkily poured Samuels the same brand of beer that Amanda had ordered without asking him what he’d like. Samuels accepted the drink with a friendly smile and slid over his payment, just the same.

“Hey, Adam. You’re late,” Amanda said lightly, addressing him by his own fake name. “Long day?”

“A wasted day,” Samuels replied with a dry smile. “I’m afraid the life of a dental receptionist isn’t as exciting as one might think.”

Amanda laughed. “There _are_ other jobs, y’know.”

Samuels’ smile turned rueful. “Not for me.”

Amanda turned back to her drink and awkwardly fiddled with the coaster underneath it. He was probably right. Hyperion Station was a good, anonymous place for them to take shelter in, but the inhabitants saw synthetics as little more than tools. Amanda had seen Samuels’ fists clench when his coworkers spoke to him too clearly and with over enunciation, as if he were a child. Hyperion gave its’ least sought-after jobs to synthetics, and while Samuels could generally pass as human, it was pointless to pretend to people as intimate as coworkers. Synthetics owned by the station were not paid for their labour but Samuels’, as an independent, was paid in full, although his earnings were deposited directly into the bank account of Ellen Baker.

“I hope I don’t sound as if I’m complaining to much,” Samuels said after a moment.

Amanda swallowed. “You’re allowed to be angry,” she said. “You’re allowed to be hurt.”

She looked up and met his eyes. His brow was furrowed, as if he couldn’t think of how to respond, a strange delay for a synthetic. His lips parted, and Amanda found herself wondering if they were soft. After a moment Samuels blinked rapidly and turned away toward the television on the wall. Amanda let out a breath and took a deep gulp from her glass. Moments like that one had been happening between them with more frequency, but that was simply another thing that she did not want to address.

Amanda turned to the television that Samuels was watching. A news anchor sat solemnly as images of a watery, grey planet flashed beside her.

“Fiorina 161, a planet that operates entirely as a correctional facility, is facing budget cuts after the lead smelting works on the premises was declared ‘non-essential,’” the anchor’s bottle-blonde perm shook with every word she spoke. “Although the site remains open, it is unknown how long such the operation will realistically be able to run.”

“No one knows where that is, you know,” Samuels gestured to the screen with his glass.

Amanda frowned, and studied his profile. His face was neutral and his eyes were trained on the screen, as if the awkward moment between them had been in her head. “What do you mean?”

“The coordinates of the planet are unlisted. It’s somewhere in the Neroid sector, but the Company won’t release where.”

“Why not?”

Samuels quirked his lip. “Security.”

Amanda dug her fingernails into the flesh of her palm. Security? Bullshit. It seemed to her that it should be impossible for Weyland-Yutani to extend their reach to encompass every part of the galaxy, and yet it was omnipresent. “I wonder what they’ll do with it.”

They fell into a silence, but it felt more companionable than awkward. Samuels leaned forward to pick up his glass and Amanda couldn’t help but look again. His throat moved as he swallowed, allowing the drink to be dissolved in the fluids in his artificial digestive system. She picked up the drink menu, quickly looking away before he could catch her.

“Six months after the tragedy that left hundreds of people dead, authorities are still investigating what exactly caused Sevastopol Station to fall into the gas giant that it orbited.”

The menu fell from her hand and fluttered to the floor. She looked back at the television with a pounding heart. The image beside the anchor’s head had switched to Sevastopol’s exterior in its former near-glory, lit brightly by KG-348.

“Representatives of Seegson and Weyland-Yutani maintain that the tragedy was an unexpected accident that was unpreventable the moment it began.”

“Bullshit,” Amanda hissed. Samuels leaned forward and clenched his jaw.

The image beside the anchor had switched to that of a large Earthen forest fire. There was no new story on Sevastopol, and so no reason to give it more than a brief mention.

Amanda gripped the sticky wood of the bar hard enough to turn her knuckles white. There were so many people who had lost their lives because of Weyland-Yutani’s greed. So many people whose memories had been dishonoured by the very people who killed them.

“Ripley,” Samuels whispered in her ear. The sound of her real name jolted her from her reverie, and she looked at Samuels half-dazed.

“Sorry,” she said slowly. “I—,”

“No,” he interrupted, urgent but still so quiet. “We have to go.”

Amanda was instantly alert. She glanced carefully over at the end of the bar, where Samuels was staring so intently. The bartender was speaking urgently into a telephone by the cash register, shooting quick glances over to them.

“Just act like everything’s fine,” Amanda said lowly, and casually sipped her beer. “We don’t know what she’s doing, it could be nothing. We don’t want to bring any attention to ourselves.”

“Right.” Samuels copied her and sipped his drink, but his shoulders were tense.

“We’ve already paid,” she continued, “so we’re just going to get up and leave.”

Blood pounded in Amanda’s ears, but she breathed deeply and forced herself to move slowly as she slid off the stool. She was closer to the door than Samuels was, so she stepped forward, trusting that he was behind her.

“Amanda Ripley, turn around and put your hands behind your head,” a cold female voice said, followed by the unmistakable cocking of a gun. Someone screamed and Amanda could hear the sound of overturning chairs and frightened shouts.

She forced herself to continue her deep breathes and looked at the window in front of her. It faced the hall outside, and she could see the bar reflected in front of it. The cranky bartender stood a several feet behind them with a revolver pointed at the back of Amanda’s head. The counter of the bar was still between them, and Amanda’s heart pounded as she made up her mind.

“Samuels?” Amanda said softly. Her arms shook slightly as she lifted them to the back of her head.

“Yes?” his breath was hot against the back of her neck.

“Run.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Samuels-Survives-Sevastopol AU! This is based on a one shot I wrote a couple of years ago that I’ve decided to expand. I was thinking about just continuing from where I left off two years ago, but there were a lot of changes I wanted to make in order to move the story forward, so I decided to rewrite it completely and turn it into something new. Find me at chryseis.tumblr.com


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ripley makes a plan, and Samuels is faced with a difficult decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _I don’t want to wake up lonely,_  
>  _I don’t want to just be fine._  
>  _I don't want to keep on hoping._  
>  _Forget what I had in mind._  
>  \- Broods, 'Mother & Father'

Christopher could hear the sound of blood pounding in his ears as he ran. The statement, of course, was entirely nonsensical. He didn’t _have_ blood, and the way in which he processed sound was not quite like hearing. But the _feeling_ of blood rushing in his head was real and the _feeling_ of an unrelenting beating of a heart in a space where there was nothing but wires and circulation fluid was real because he was _afraid_. Another impossibility—and yet as he followed Amanda through the twisting corridors of Hyperion Station his only thought was that he was terrified that they were about to die. Statistically speaking, Amanda was faster and stronger than the average twenty-seven-year-old woman, but she was still flesh and blood, with limbs that could tire and lungs and a heart that would soon force her to slow down. Already, he could hear the rasp of her breath as they shouldered through the evening crowds, attempting to lose the Weyland-Yutani woman who sought them. 

“She won’t shoot in the middle of a crowd!” Amanda had shouted as they had first started to run from the bar they had nearly been caught in. He had nodded and followed her, although after everything they had seen on Sevastopol he doubted this claim, as he knew she must, too. 

“Shit,” he heard Amanda breathe as they turned past a row of shops.

“She recognized us.” Christopher’s processor felt water-logged. “How did they know where to find us?”

“That’s the last thing on my mind,” Amanda hissed. “We need to get the fuck off this station. We have to keep moving— we’re almost at the docks.”

Christopher risked a glance backwards but could not see the Company woman who had run them out of the bar through the busy crowds in the station. Amanda had been leading them, but she had begun to fall behind him. He laced his fingers through hers and anxiously pressed her forward. Her hand was slick with sweat, but her grip was strong. 

“Why the fuck don’t we have a gun?” she gasped as they ran. The crowds thinned as they drew closer to the docks, but Christopher did not let her go. He could see the doors to the hangar looming in the distance, and increased his pace, forcing Amanda to do the same. When they reached the entrance, Christopher smashed his free hand on the button next to the door and waited an agonizing three seconds for it to open. Finally, they crashed inside. The hangar was empty, and they had little trouble reaching the unit where they had stowed the _Torrens_. Amanda furiously keyed the code into the side of the spacecraft, muttering furiously under her breath. The loud buzz that emitted from the hangar entrance when it opened came from the other side of the room, and Christopher turned around in alarm. 

“Hurry, Amanda,” he said urgently. 

Amanda curled her hand into a fist and banged it against the side of the craft. “It’s loading, Samuels, the piece of shit takes time to open!” 

Christopher looked back toward the entrance. The Company woman had entered, and she was hurrying toward them with her gun drawn. Before he could react, she halted and pulled the trigger. Amanda cried out as a bullet hit the side of the _Torrens_ , leaving a dent just a few inches above her head. As if on instinct, she dove under the ship, and Christopher quickly followed. They crawled on their bellies into the shadows. Even in the darkness, he could see that Amanda’s eyes were huge with fear but her gaze was determined as she stared at the entrance, where the woman was still approaching them. 

“We need to get her gun,” Amanda breathed, still not tearing her eyes away. Her arm brushed against his and he felt the warmth of her skin, so soft and so easily torn. A single bullet could end her life before she even had time to realize that she’d been shot. Humans were created to be so fragile, as if they were intended to be easily destroyed. 

“How?” Christopher replied quietly. He dipped his chin closer to the floor to get a better view. He could only see the woman legs. She was only about ten feet from where they lay. “I don’t think we—”

Before he could finish, Amanda had begun to crawl towards the woman. Every instinct coded in Christopher’s head began to silently blare, instructing him to force her back, anything to secure her safety. He gritted his teeth and forced his fingernails into the palm of his hand. Fighting his programming was hard, but he was getting better at it. Amanda was clever and strong— he had to trust that she knew what she was doing. Slowly, he belly-crawled behind her. 

“Come out,” the woman’s voice broke through the silence. “It is truly not my intention to hurt you, I just needed a secure way of getting you to come with me. If you come quietly, you have my word that I won’t hurt you.”

Christopher knew that the woman’s words were probably true—they had information the Company wanted, and that made them invaluable. But he had no doubt that once they had been used for all they were worth, they would certainly not be allowed to live. Amanda looked back at him, and he knew from the angry furrow of her brow that she felt the same. She raised her hand and, to his great surprise, slammed it twice against the belly of the ship. After a brief pause the woman bent down, her hair tumbling across her face as she looked towards them. Amanda reached out and grabbed her by the ankles, knocking her violently to the floor. The woman’s head hit the concrete floor with a crack, and Amanda scrambled from under the ship and crawled on top of her, pinning her with her knees. Christopher quickly followed, while the woman screamed and Amanda scrambled to tear the weapon from her hands. Absently, he heard a scraping sound as the entrance to the _Torrens_ finally slid open. The woman’s hand jerked and a shot went off. Christopher staggered backwards, certain that Amanda had been hit, but she did not stop as she wrestled the other woman. The Company woman pulled one arm free and struck Amanda hard on her cheekbone, sending Amanda’s red wig tumbling to the floor. Amanda was stunned by the blow for a brief moment, and the woman took the chance to flip her over and hold the gun against the side of her head. Christopher froze and his vision went white as contradictory commands flashed in his mind.

_DO NOT HARM THE STRANGER._

_PROTECT AMANDA RIPLEY._

_DO NOT HARM THE STRANGER._

_PROTECT AMANDA RIPLEY._

_DO NOT HARM THE STRANGER._

_OVERRIDE._

_PROTECT AMANDA RIPLEY._

_PROTECT AMANDA RIPLEY._

_**PROTECT AMANDA RIPLEY.**_

With a loud ringing in his ears, Christopher marched forward and kicked the woman in the ribs. He was stronger than a human, and the kick sent her staggering off of Amanda. The gun dropped from her hand, and Christopher knelt and picked it up. The Company woman sat up slowly, dazed and bleeding heavily from where her head had hit the ground, and clutching her side. Before she had a chance to sit up, Christopher raised the gun and shot her in the head. Blood splattered against the _Torrens_ and the woman slid heavily to the ground. The shot was deafening, but the silence that followed seemed to be louder. Amanda was crouched on the floor, breathing heavily. She looked up at him; her face was slick with sweat and a welt had already begun to swell on her left cheek, and her nose was bleeding. His mind urged him to move towards her, to help her up, but his legs wouldn’t move. The gun in his hand was still pointed at where the dead woman lay, and he realized that his arm was trembling. 

_ERROR. PROGRAMMING BREACH DETECTED. ERROR._

“Samuels,” he turned his head and saw that Amanda had clambered to her feet and was walking slowly towards him. Her eyes were wide with fear and adrenaline. “You’re hurt.”

He looked down, and to his surprise, white fluid was spreading down the side of his torn shirt. He vaguely recalled the sound of a gunshot when Amanda had been fighting the woman. He touched the wound with his free hand—how strange: his circuits should be sending him the sensation that simulated discomfort, but he couldn’t feel it. 

“Samuels,” Amanda said again, and grabbed his arm. “We have to go. Someone could come in any minute.” 

She seemed about to take her hand away, but Christopher pulled her back, suddenly sure that if she let him go the world would collapse. 

“Amanda,” he gasped. “I can’t walk, I can’t—”

“You have to,” Amanda withdrew her hand and it took all of Christopher’s strength to stay upright. “You’re in shock, I know, but if we stay here we’ll die. Give me the gun.”

He loosened his grip and allowed her to take the weapon from his hand. As soon as she took the gun, all the feeling returned to Christopher’s body. He could feel the weight his legs carried, and he could feel a dull ache in his side. 

“You’re okay,” Amanda said. He realized she hadn't taken her eyes from him. She sniffed and wiped at her bloody nose with the back of her hand. “You did good. But we have to go.”

Christopher took a tentative step toward the door and found to his relief that his legs allowed this. One foot in front of the other foot. Easy. 

He followed Amanda to the _Torrens_ ’ entrance on unsteady feet, his eyes trained carefully on the back of her head. He could feel warm circulation fluid dripping from his wound and down to his thighs. Amanda punched the lock button and the door slid shut behind them. She set the gun heavily on the ledge and walked towards the ship’s bridge. 

Christopher looked back towards the entrance. “Should we have taken her— her body with us?"

Amanda shook her head. “I don’t think it matters. Weyland-Yutani knew where we were.”

“What are we doing next?” He hated how helpless he sounded.

“We’re going to get the fuck out of here,” Amanda said thickly; the blood in her nose had evidently begun to clot, “and then we’re going to patch you up.”

“I don’t know of any safe place to go.” 

Amanda turned to him, her eyes flickering to the hands he had clasped against his wound and then back to his face. She smiled grimly. “I don’t either. But we have to find one. And, hey, we’ve got each other, right? I’m glad I’m not alone. Not anymore.”

She looked so tired, and so hurt, but the fire in her eyes had not been doused. Christopher had known from the moment he had decided to contact APOLLO that he would do his best to ensure her safety, but even then, he hadn’t quite realized just how far he would go.

He would follow Amanda Ripley through the stars and skies for as long as she would have him. 

“Alright,” he said, shedding his uncertainty as if he had never carried it. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for starting this and then taking forever to update! I've had such a busy semester. I'm really hoping to post more regularly once finals are done, but we'll see! Thank you for reading this chapter, I do hope you're enjoying this so far. Your comments and kudos are appreciated. You can find me at chryseis.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ripley finds herself in a tight spot when Samuels' programming puts his own life in danger.

Samuels had not said a word since they had boarded the ship. In the months that she had known him, Amanda had found that he only spoke when he had something of value to say—a great difference from the bullshit she had heard spewed from the mouths of others over the years. She had appreciated that, as it was a quality that they shared. But this wasn’t his usual thoughtful quietness, it was something else. He had seemed shaken but stable when she had taken the gun from him and coaxed him aboard the _Torrens_. But when they had reached the bridge he had slumped into a crew chair, staring blankly ahead as Amanda punched in coordinates to a colonized planet a two-month flight away from Hyperion Station. When she was finished, she turned back to Samuels. His face was still vacant, and hydraulic fluid leaked weakly through the fingers he had clutched against his side.

“Samuels,” she said thickly; it was hard to breathe through the blood that had begun to dry in her nose. “Let me fix you up.”

Samuels blinked rapidly, as if startled, but he did not look at her. “That’s unnecessary, Amanda, you should tend to your own injuries.”

Amanda let out a shaky breath. Talking was good. For a moment she had been afraid that he was gone for good, and that she was alone once again. “I’ve had worse, you know,” she said dryly, doing her best to calm her pounding heart.

“Amanda,” he said, firmer than before. “You don’t understand—I _can’t_.”

He looked at her finally, still clutching his side. His eyes were wide and his mouth was a thin line. “I physically _cannot,_ ” he repeated, “attend to myself or allow you to attend to me until your health is ensured.”

Amanda gritted her teeth and fought the urge to roll her eyes. She stalked towards him and dragged over a chair, sitting so that they were knee-to-knee and exactly at eye level. “Listen to me,” she enunciated very clearly. “I am _fine_. You have seen me when I was hurt more than I had ever been in my life. Do you remember? Do you remember what I looked like?”

“Yes,” he said so softly that she could barely hear him. His eyes drifted away so that he stared blankly past her head. “I remember.”

“Good.” She swallowed hard—the empty expression on his face was unnerving. “Then you know that this”—she gestured to her face— “is nothing. I’m okay. Now, if you don’t let me look at your wound, you’re going to lose too much fluid, your internal systems won’t be lubricated, and you’ll overheat and die. Next to you, I am fucking peachy.”

His lips twitched at that. A smile? Maybe. It was _something_.

“Say it,” she urged. “Get that into your head. Tell me that I’m fine.”

His eyes fluttered open-and-closed rapidly and the fingers on the hand not pressed against his side began to twitch. Without thinking she reached out and closed her fingers over his own. He was hot to the touch, as if he had a fever. Amanda was not an expert in synthetic repair, but she had done a little training, and she knew that he was far too warm for his own good. She stood up and tried to pull her hand away, but he grasped it back. He gripped her hard, like he had before they had boarded the ship. His eyes were open wide, and his lips were slightly parted. It dawned on her that here was a man who was learning what it meant to be _afraid._ She gripped him back just as hard.

“Say it,” she said firmly. “Believe it.”

Samuels licked his lips. His eyes were trained on hers. “You’re—” he choked, “you’re… alright.”

“I am. Now, will you let me help you? Can you?”

He leaned back in his chair and ground his teeth together. “Yes,” he hissed between his teeth. It was obvious what this act of self-rebellion was costing him.

“Can you walk?”

Samuels nodded, and allowed her to let go of his hand and slip her arm around his waist, guiding him to the medical bay.

\--

_Six months earlier_

It was the sound that woke her. What was it? A terrible rasping that filled her helmet and echoed back to her, pulsing in time with the pounding in her head. _Oh._ It was the sound of her own labourious breathing. A weak sob escaped her lips. She didn’t know how long she had been unconscious, and she was too afraid to open her eyes. She was floating, she knew, but where? And why? Every part of her body ached, and her face was stiff with blood. Her tongue was heavy in her mouth from dehydration, and her neck was so swollen from violent synthetic hands that swallowing felt like knives were being dragged down her throat. Slowly, so slowly, she opened her eyes and gazed upon the void. All she could see was darkness—a black expanse that had swallowed her whole.

She remembered now. She heard her own voice calling Verlaine’s name, with Samuels echoing it behind her. She remembered that he had begun to strip off his pressure suit, but that she hadn’t, too consumed by her need to see Verlaine and Connor’s faces, to _know_ that she and Samuels weren’t really the only ones left. Her vision had been blurry and her right ankle had been close to giving out on her, but she had limped on, half-delirious and fully determined.

“Verlaine,” she had coughed, her voice choked from smoke and pain. “Verlaine!”

But as she had approached the bridge, all that had been waiting for her was death, in the black, oil-spill form of the creature.

As she had staggered back from the monster she could hear Samuels shouting her name, but she couldn’t turn away from the creature’s gaping jaws. She had a choice: to let herself be torn apart by the monster before her, or to send them both to die alone in the cold, vastness of space.

An easy choice, in the end.

But now, suspended in nothingness, she wondered if a quick death would have been better. A quick death, sure, but then Samuels would have been trapped and alone.

An easy choice.

But where was he now? Had he lost sight of her? Had he given her up for dead? Had he left her behind?

Her heart pounded and, god, her head hurt. Her stomach churned, and fears of choking to death on vomit in her helmet crept into her mind. And even if she could avoid being sick, running out oxygen or dying of dehydration were not pleasant alternatives.

“Okay,” she whispered to herself. “Okay.” A promise, a mantra. She hadn’t made it that far only to die like _this._ But her mind felt clouded by a fog, her eyes wouldn’t focus, and she could feel her limbs trembling in her suit. And, _god_ , she was so fucking tired. She closed her eyes again. It would be so easy to succumb to unconsciousness. Perhaps her oxygen would run out before she woke, and she wouldn’t even feel a thing…

_Just let me make it through here…_

No, she couldn’t do that. She had never once chosen the easiest option, and she wasn’t about to start.

Slowly, reluctantly, she opened her eyes again. But just as she did, a beam of light swept across her face, half-blinding her. She squinted through her lashes, and even with her blurry vision she recognized the ship that rose before her.

She hadn’t been left behind. Not this time.

\--

Although she and Samuels were of a similar height, he looked absurdly small with the far away expression on his face, and the way his legs dangled above the floor as he sat on the med table. Amanda approached him with the medical staple device she had retrieved from the _Torrens’_ trauma kit. Now that the adrenaline had faded, her nose and cheek throbbed, but she had no intention of telling him that.

“Ready?” she brandished the device.

He blinked, focusing his vision on her. “Yes,” he said softly. He made an attempt to pull his shirt off with one hand, but couldn’t seem to lift his right arm. Amanda impatiently batted his hand away and helped him lift it over his head. With a wet cloth she sponged away the fluid around the wound, allowing herself better access.

“Sorry about this,” she said, and put her thumb and forefinger into his torn skin, separating it as gently as she could. The wet sound of her fingers separating his internal systems was deeply unpleasant. But she huffed a sigh of relief as she assessed the damage. “Here’s some good news: the bullet didn’t hit anything vital, and it went right through you, which will make this a lot easier.”

“Good,” he said softly, and she did her best to ignore the strange absentness he continued to project.

Although her knowledge of synthetic maintenance was by no means extensive, the task itself was straightforward. Samuels was silent and blank-faced as she stapled both sides of the wound. He looked pointedly ahead as she worked, but she noticed that he flinched each time the steel pierced his flesh. But at least he was reacting again. When she finished, she washed away the rest of the excess fluid, and double-checked that the wounds were properly sealed. But she was up to her elbows in hydraulic fluid and the blood on her face was increasingly uncomfortable. “I’m gonna clean up, okay?” he nodded in response, and that was good enough.

She left the med bay and headed to the communal lavatory. The sink was large enough to accommodate three taps, and so washing the fluid off her arms was simple. When she was finished, Amanda looked in the mirror to assess her own damage. Her left cheek was red and swollen where the woman had hit her, and her nose was caked with blood. She touched it gingerly, hissing as pain shot up all the way to her scalp. It hurt, definitely, but she was certain that it wasn’t broken. She made the water go as hot as she could stand and washed the blood from her face and out of her nose. Her shirt was stained white and red, but that was fine for the moment. She popped an ibuprofen from the cupboard and made her way back to the med bay. Through the window she could see Samuels still sitting on the table where she had left him, his shirt a crumpled ball on the floor. He faced away from her, and his head was hung low. He looked utterly defeated, too much like how he had appeared slumped on the floor after interfacing with APOLLO. She counted to three in her head and re-entered the med bay.

“How’re the staples?” she tried her best to keep her voice casual.

“They seem to be holding up well,” he told her. Some of the strength had returned to his voice. “Later, perhaps tomorrow, when the fluid has properly congealed, I can apply more permanent stitching to the tears.”

“I can help you with that—”

“Thank you, Amanda, but that won’t be necessary.”

Amanda blinked, startled and annoyed by his abrupt reply. “What happened? This is about more than getting shot, isn’t it?”

Samuels’ face was twisted with something Amanda couldn’t name when he finally looked up at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you _what?_ ”

“Your plan to catch that woman off-guard,” the strange, melancholic tone of his voice was gone, replaced with what was clearly anger. He had never shouted at her before; the only person she had ever heard him raise his voice to had been Waits. “Why couldn’t you have told me what you were going to do?”

Amanda was silent for a moment. She hadn’t imagined that it was this that had caused Samuels such distress. “It was dangerous, what I did, but it was the only thing I could think of in the moment,” she told him in a low voice. “If I had told you, you would have tried to stop me, and I think we would both be dead or captured if I let that happen.”

Samuels shook his head. The anger faded from his features, and he just looked tired and sad. “But I… I shouldn’t have killed her.”

Without thinking, Amanda crossed the room and took him firmly by the shoulder. He smelled of the faint bitterness that dried hydraulic fluid carried. The first time she had killed a person on Sevastopol she had felt like doubling over and being sick on her shoes, but there hadn’t been time for such distractions. But Samuels had all the time in the world to stew in his thoughts, and it must have been horrifying.

“You did what you had to do,” her words were as firm as her grip. “And you saved my life.”

“No, Ripley, you don’t understand,” his voice was tinged with frustration. It had been a while since he had called her by her last name. “I truly should not have been able to do _that_ to her. Killing a human— _harming_ one, even—violates the very first program installed in Weyland-Yutani synthetics upon our creation. My concern for your safety overrode my programming, Ripley, my prohibitors were bypassed when I saw you in danger.” His dark eyes were huge with alarm as he looked up at her.

Slowly, she hoisted herself up on the table so that she sat beside him. When he did not protest, she slid closer so that their thighs were a hair apart. She understood what it was to possess a fear of the unknown more than most.

“What,” she asked careful not to aggravate his distress, “does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “After my system was attacked by APOLLO… I don’t—it could mean that there’s something wrong with me.”

Amanda looked away. Twice now, Samuels had sacrificed a part of himself to save her. When she turned back, he was staring at her, so lost and afraid. She thought of the way he had first refused her aid when he’d been shot, even as his life had bled out between the fingers he had clutched against his side, and a realization blossomed in her mind.

“You stopped someone who was going to kill me,” she refused to break his gaze. “And you let me help you because you were hurt worse than me, even though your programming told you not to. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you, Christopher, I think you’re just _learning_.”

He had been sitting hunched forward with his hands on his knees, but as she spoke he straightened into the perfect posture she was familiar with. “How could that possibly be?”

“I guess you’re special,” she said dryly, and was pleased when that drew a soft chuckle from him.

“I suppose,” he began slowly, “what these bypasses have allowed me to do have caused more good than harm,” the full strength hadn’t returned to his voice, but it was close. “But they complicate things.”

“I hate to break it to you, but that’s part of being human.”

Another chuckle. “I’m not, though, you know. _Human_.”

Amanda’s lips twitched up in a half-smile. She remembered the morning she had first met him, a man so determined to bring resolution to a complete stranger, just because he thought it was the right thing to do. “I know. But you’re close.”

His eyes lingered on her face and he wet his lips with his tongue as she tilted her head to the side—two unspoken questions. He finally turned his head away, almost shyly.

“You’ve never called me that before,” he told her softly. “Christopher.”

He said the name in an odd manner, as if it was unfamiliar on his own tongue. She frowned, not remembering when she had used it in their conversation, and unsure of how what he said could possibly be true.

“But I’ve known you for six months, I must have called you by your first name before.”

He smiled again. “No, but that’s quite alright.”

Amanda was taken aback. Had she really been so impersonal with someone she’d known for half a year, someone with whom she shared such deadly secrets?

“I’m sorry, C—Christopher,” the name tripped clumsily from her lips. “I hadn’t realized—”

“Really, Amanda,” his smile broadened, and she realized with relief that his near-breakdown was close to passing. “I’m just glad you said it now.”

The hope in his eyes caused her heart to ache after seeing the sorrow and fear it had replaced. “Oh. Me too.”

Samuels— _Christopher_ —sighed. “What are we going to do next?”

Amanda choked out a small laugh. “Keep moving, I guess. We have a little over eight weeks before we reach planet Dell. We have time to think.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “When would you like to begin preparing for hypersleep?”

Eight weeks was a long time. Amanda pictured Christopher stewing in anxiety and loneliness, counting the days until he would be able to wake her up. She smiled and bumped her knee against his. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t really feel like sleeping.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I had hoped to have this up by Alien Day, but that obviously didn't happen! You can find me at chryseis.tumblr.com


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